Whether the Weather Be Fine...

There's a stereotype that Danes love to talk about the weather.

So, today, I'd like to take a moment to talk about the weather in Denmark.

We got to town right in the midst of a horrible heat wave in America, and stepped off the plane in Copenhagen into beautiful, Fall-like temperatures.  Mid-60s (fahrenheit) and breezy.  And that's fairly normal for a Summer day here.

But the one thing that Denmark has that I've never adjusted well to is humidity.

This is something that I realized when we were on our honeymoon in New Orleans in June.  I expected my husband, who is used to northern-European temperatures, to have the hardest time with the weather there.  Turns out, I was the first to have issues with it, and it was all because of the humidity.  The places I've lived in New York and New England have been fairly dry compared to New Orleans.

And also compared to Copenhagen, it seems.

So, on a day like today, where the temperature is currently 77 degrees fahrenheit (what would be a lovely, mild Summer day in Boston), with the humidity hovering around 70%...

I'm a sweaty mess.

And it's not attractive.

Studieskolen, Week 1 - Jeg Kan Tale Lidt Dansk

I'm told that the class is moving extremely quickly.  However, compared to the insane class that my husband and I took in Boston this past Fall, it seems like a cake walk so far.

I think that if I hadn't taken that class, and if I hadn't been completely overwhelmed to the point of tears after each one, I would probably feel differently.  But even if that class didn't teach me much, it did give me some perspective about what's effective when it comes to learning a new language, and what isn't.

One week in, and I'm able to have very basic conversations about who I am and where I'm from.  I've learned the Danish way of telling time, and all of the numbers from one to one billion.

With our teacher speaking mostly Danish during the class, I've certainly had moments of complete confusion.  The most frustrating of which happened in class yesterday morning.  We had a new student start yesterday, and he is from India.  Now, the teacher turned to me and was trying to explain to me why someone from India is called "en inder" rather than "en indianer."  Having been brought up as a politically correct American, it didn't occur to me that she could be telling me that "indianer" is the term for an "American Indian."  She further solidified the point, and further made my inner political correctness cringe, by then switching to English and referring to them as "red Indians."  This was certainly not the first time that I'd heard the phrase come from a European, but it's always a little bit shocking and always makes me uncomfortable.

All-in-all, though, I feel really good about how the class is going.  I feel like I'm following at least as well as most of the class, and for now I'm feeling cautiously confident that I'll be able to learn Danish in a reasonable amount of time.

In other news, after more than 6 weeks waiting for our furniture and whatnot to cross the Atlantic on a cargo ship, everything was finally delivered this week.  Now we can work on really making that dining room into a proper English pub.

Also, it's nice to see the Superlambanana again:

It Makes the World Go Roooound

Have you ever seen Danish money?  If not, here are the coins:

They go from 1/2 of 1 krone on the left (also known as 50 øre) all the way up to 20 kroner on the far right.  20 kroner is currently equal to about $3.30.

I'm of two minds about all of these coins.  Part of me likes them.  It's fun to have all of that change jangling around, and who doesn't like coins with holes?  They're like tiny metal donuts.  Fun!

Another part of me finds them irritating.  Since I'm not used to which coin is worth how much, I'm constantly standing at the register flipping them over, trying to find the amount on them.  Also, they're bulky and heavy.  Europe generally finds America silly that having bills for amounts as small as $1, but paper money is much lighter and much easier to fold into a wallet.  With all of the change I get, I often can't close my wallet at all, which often leads to me spilling change all over the inside of my purse.

But all of these things are really no huge deal, beyond being something to get used to.  Here's what I really don't get about Danish money:

As I mentioned, the smallest denomination is 50 øre, or 0.5 of 1 krone.  But if you go to buy something, often it will cost something like 12.95 kroner (as did the parmesan cheese that I bought today).  And since there is no way to give them .95 kroner, they just round up.

And you end up paying 13 kroner.

Why not just charge 13 kroner?

As my husband and I discussed tonight, the only way not rounding up would save money is if you're buying something in bulk.  Hundreds of that one thing.  And then, maybe you'll save a few kroner.

Otherwise, I don't get it.

Studieskolen - Module 1.1, Day 1 Recap

This morning, I started my first day at Studieskolen studying Danish for absolute beginners.  It seems that, like me, a few of the folks in the class may have tried to teach themselves with Rosetta Stone, or some other method.  For the most part, though, we're all right at the same level.

While the Danish class I took briefly while in Boston made my head spin, this class seems to be much more my speed.  About 10 minutes into the class, the teacher started speaking almost primarily Danish, but at a level that was easy enough to decipher based on the context.

Module 1.1 at Studieskolen focuses mostly on pronunciation, and only a little bit on the reading and writing of Danish.  Much of this first class was spent going through sentences and crossing out the many, many letters that are silent.

So far, I feel really good about the whole thing.  I feel like I've already learned a lot, but I don't feel so overwhelmed that I'm scared to go back tomorrow morning.  And the 3 1/2 hour class goes surprisingly quickly.

There's a really varied mix of people in the class as well.  It seems that only 3 of us are native English speakers (one other American, and one Brit), while the rest are from all over Europe, Asia and South America.

We'll see how many come back tomorrow.  There are 17 of us now, but I've been told it's fairly common for classes to shrink drastically after the first few days.

This Pub is My Pub

This week was all about painting.  I wanted to make sure to paint the dining room before my husband came to his senses about letting me go with red.

The guy at the paint store did his very best to subtly convince me to reconsider by suggesting that I take the paint chips home and thinking about it.  Then he tried to convince me to take a few small paint samples home to try out on the walls.  Then, when he was calculating the amount of paint I would need, he said, "You're painting the red on all of the walls?"  In fact, I had to go back the next day for a few more supplies before I started painting, and he was still skeptical.  "So... the color is... okay...?" he asked.

I'd say the color is just fine:

My husband is putting on a brave face, and has decided that the color reminds him of an English pub.  And as he is an Englishman, I think that's probably a good thing.

Though, he would probably repaint the walls white if he could.

In other news, I start Danish classes at Studieskolen, so I will likely have an update on how that went some time soon.

Painting the Roses...err, Walls

Back in March, long before we moved to Denmark, I started to get the design itch.  It was probably because I'd been spending my days watching far too many episodes of whatever I could find on HGTV, but it lead me to write this post.

We've been in Copenhagen for just over a month now, and we have yet to really do much with the apartment aside from small projects like finding a brass lamp for the bathroom and scrubbing the floorboards.

Our furniture, however, is due to arrive some time soon.  Hopefully in the next week or so.  And that means that we need to get done any painting that needs doing.

After so many conversations with my husband in which he half jokes that I can paint the walls any color, as long as it's a shade of white, we actually agreed on a color for the dining room really quickly.

Ladies and gentlemen, he's letting me paint the walls RED!

Don't call immigration.  I kind of like it here.

Shocking Things...Only Not

I'm about to blow the minds... of absolutely no one.

It should surprise absolutely no one at all that moving to a strange country is an emotionally taxing endeavor.

It's also probably not at all surprising that it's really easy to assume you'll be fine before the move happens.  In fact, remember this post?

Here's me laying it all out there:  While I'm still completely content with our decision to move here, it's started to be really emotionally taxing.  Turns out that when you move really far away from everything you know, and you have to learn to do a lot of really basic things over again, it can cause a certain amount of anxiety.

In fact, since my husband is my anchor here, my subconscious has decided it would be fun to give me reoccurring nightmares about my marriage ending for one reason or another.

My subconscious can be a real bitch sometimes.

The good news, though, is that in a little over a week I'll be starting daytime classes at Studieskolen.  Having more of a schedule will help to make me feel more secure in my day-to-day life.  Not to mention that I'll finally start really learning Danish, which will make everything infinitely easier.

I hope.